23 Things Completed!

Well, I've done them all!  I enjoyed the format of this learning experience and I dabbled with a whole lot of things I'd known about but never tried.  So I do feel a lot more informed about a range of 2.0 technologies now.  I don't actually expect to use too many of them on a regular basis, but I may now be a more intelligent conversation partner.  And the promise of cake at the wrap-up party makes it all even more worthwhile. :)

Worlde and Library Thing

Wordle was lots of fun.   I seem to recall somebody using it for a presentation once too -- so it can be used to make a point, not just for entertainment.  I'd heard about Library Thing ages ago but had never checked it out.  But in searching for a book I'd read in order to add it to my library I discovered that another one in the same series came out last year -- and I missed it.  So now I've got to stop playing with these applications and get some reading done!

Community Walk

Unlike some of the other applications, this one was really easy to use.  I can see this being something I use before I travel to new cities.  In fact, the map I made today was for a few key places that I'll be visiting in New Orleans when I go to ALA.  The only goofy thing was that when I made a path from one point on the map to another it did not follow the actual roads -- it was 'as the crow flies'.  That isn't really that useful at all.  I loved that all of the sites I wanted to add came up when I searched for them in the search box.  That made adding them all super easy. I like it!

Widgets

I have seen widgets on some library pages -- for IM, for example.  But when I looked at Heather's WorldCat widget I realized that those handy search boxes right in many Google results must also be widgets.  I love those, and they make a lot of sense in libray land since so much of what we're about is searching and finding.  Maybe widgets for my most-used databases?  The library catalogue? Customizable ones for our users who are so inclined would make a lot of sense.  Must investigate further.

Bookmarking

I've long intended to try a social bookmarking sites.  Today I signed up on Diigo.  I wonder how that is pronounced?  I found it not really intuitive to use and I stumbled around a bit.  I'm not a compulsive surfer or bookmarker, so this is probably more than I need in order to manage my few 'favorites'.  The sticky note idea is fun --too bad we can't use it on our work machines!  That I would have tried.  The one adavantage I can see is not so much storing my own bookmarks, but using the bookmarks and tags of others to help identify popular sites on a topic of interest.  I suppose my Google searches are ranked as well, but by machines rather than people.  This may offer a different perspective.

Tweeting

My tweet was not noteworthy, but I tweeted.  And I don't expect I will again in the near future.  But it was interesting to see some of my facebook friends there, and realize that their fb status updates are also tweets -- I hadn't thought about how all these networking things fit together.  So now I get that I think.  I also wondered why people I wasn't following on twitter showed up in the stream of tweets on my page.  That's when I learned about retweeting.  And I was also surprised some of the tweeters refer back to their webpages, which is actually where their context is.  So you don't actually get much that's useful on twitter in those cases.  Yes, I was aware of the 140 character limit, but I thought that people would then be clever enough to use Twitter well as a standalone medium.  Anyway, pretty easy to do all this, but will I login to twitter, igoogle, etc every day to get my fix of largely peripheral information?  Probably not so much.

Flickr

I used Flickr to find photos of places I've already been.  Searching by 'tags only' usually yields fewer results, not surprisingly.  I took the 'tour' and thought there were a lot of neat features.  But I haven't seen any photos/collections that actually use ANY of them!

The photo I really wanted to post was of my hometown public library, but alas downloads were not allowed.  So I'll settle for this peaceful scene, added to Flickr by BluePail, which we visited only two months ago:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/22/183129680_8fc53a38f0.jpg

Wikis

I'll admit that I have never loved the U of S wiki.  In the past it has reminded me a bit of our intranet, where things appear where you don't expect them, the labels don't all make sense, and it is challenging to go back and change things or print things properly.  Various groups that I've been a part of have made use of it, however.  What I'm thinking about now is the overlap between the functionality of GoogleDocs, wikis, and our internal o: drive.  I've used all of them mostly for the same thing: sharing and editing documents.  If I diversified in my needs a bit though, the wiki would probably become the most appropriate tool, since I think there is more functionality that just a doc on the o: drive.  As usual, part of the hurdle is just getting used to something new, but some programs are way more intuitive to figure out than others.  Somehow, the wiki and I have issues.

Podcasting

Had a bit of a time figuring out how to add a feed from a podcast but used Google for some instruction -- generally it seems to be about 'adding a gadget', so those are the options to look for on your iGoogle or Blogger pages. So my podcast is here on the right -- the CBC 'laugh of the day'.

And another thing...

I wanted to make a post that included text AND the YouTube video, so I'm trying another one here. This is for all the cat lovers out there.

YouTube

I knew just what video to post for this week's thing:  our brand new "Welcome to the Murray Library" video, shot and edited by my intern Eric.  He did a great job and I'm happy to share it.

I haven't made or uploaded any videos on YouTube myself, but I find it easy to share and embed the ones I find there in other places.  I suppose my use of YouTube has been fairly basic but what I have figured out on the site is pretty intuitive. 

We've established a Murray Channel there now, so that when we have more Murray specific videos (as we hope we will sometime!) they'll all be together there.  Videos seem to be the way of recruitment and outreach across the campus these days.  We in the library better hop to it!

Murry Library on YouTube

Prezi

Just used Prezi and had a stroll down memory lane, musically speaking.  Why is it that the bands you loved when you were 12 are just about the best bands ever, even if you can't even stand to listen to them anymore?

Prezi made it easy to do things, but not necessarily the things that I wanted to do.  I kept scrolling with the mouse, thinking that it would move me around as usual. But it just kept changing the size of everything.  It also took me a while to get my head around the idea that the text is moved and sized in the same way as everything else (those blue circles).  That's really different from PowerPoint and Word software.

So, it would just take some getting used to.  But I bet that 10 year olds would be all over it.

Googling all over the place

I did create a new Google doc, though I have used this before.  It has worked well for collaborative projects between people living in different places, and for group projects at work.  Rather than sending versions of files between each other, we can all just edit the same Google docs one.  Only trouble has been that sometimes more than one person wants to be editing at the same time...

I like that my Google account is useful for getting me into most of these 23  Things apps.  I feared that I'd have to set up 20 more new accounts and passwords to manage them all!

Problem solving

Well, I often roll my eyes at my daughter's lack of problem solving capabilities.  But when it comes to technology I realize that I'm the same way.  One of the gadgets I've added to my iGoogle page plays horrible music and I don't know how to figure out which one it is, apart from deleting them one by one.  As I result I've just stopped going to the page altogether.  So I've caught the pot calling the kettle black I suppose.

Today I checked the 23 Things blog to see what this week's things were and realized that I'd already done one...adding the 23 Things blog to my iGoogle page. Yay! Now if only I wasn't scared off of using the iGoogle page by that darn dance music.

I've known about RSS feeds for ages but I've never subscribed to one until today.  Perhaps I'll be more intentional about watching for work-related ones now.

This could be dangerous

Until now the extent of my use of 2.0 technologies has been restricted mostly to facebook.  I'm not scared of technology, but I can generally get by without a lot of extras.  So I'm participating in the 23 Things program to push myself into new territory.  Though I'm pretty resistant to change (I'm usually a super-late adopter), I have to admit that I often like the results when I finally get there.  So, here I go.  My first blog is registered.

Hamsters, horses and other hirsute things

The excitement about the iGoogle 'thing' spread throughout the house last week.  Both adults now have an iGoogle page and my daughter commandeered mine to add a bunch of horse gadgets.  My personal favourite was the hamster gadget.  I named him Jester.  My daughter named him Hammy.  I feed him regularly and I make him exercise too.  He's living the good life, I'd say.

As for hirsute, I leave you with these furry creatures: